‘Pakistan not solely responsible to bring Taliban round to talks’

Islamabad, April 26 (IANS) Pakistan was making serious efforts for peace in Afghanistan but the country was not solely responsible for bringing the Afghan Taliban on negotiation table for dialogue, foreign office said on Tuesday.

Foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria made the statement in an apparent response to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s comment in a speech on Monday that Afghanistan “no longer expects Pakistan to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table”.

Zakaria said Pakistan condemns terrorism in all forms and does not differentiate between terrorist groups.

He also said peace in Afghanistan was in the best interest of Pakistan, Dawn online reported.

Zakaria said Pakistan itself was the biggest victim of terrorism as thousands of its citizens and security forces personnel have been killed in the war against terror.

He said a quadrilateral group was formed to streamline the efforts directed towards bringing peace in Afghanistan so Pakistan cannot solely be held responsible for failure of the talks.

The statement comes after Ghani on Monday threatened diplomatic reprisals against Pakistan if it refused to take action against the Taliban, in a new hard-line stance after the Kabul attack left 64 people dead last Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a BBC Urdu service report citing diplomatic sources said an Afghan Taliban delegation based in Qatar was in Karachi for direct talks with the Afghan government.

Pakistan hosted a meeting between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives in Murree in July 2015 along with the representatives from China and the US.

The second round of the talks scheduled to be held in Pakistan on July 31, 2015, was cancelled in view of the reports about the death of Taliban chief Mullah Omar and the leadership crisis in the outfit.